I have been married to the love of my life for 20 years. Not only are we life partners, we are coresearchers and collaborators. My entire career is based on work with them.
Three years ago, they began to get more aggressive with me as I became more depressed. I tried unsuccessfully to kill myself twice. I was diagnosed with diabetes, lost 25 kilos, went to therapy, got on meds, and — slowly — things started to get better, for me at any rate. My partner, however, continued to be more and more aggressive with me, even as I got better.
We came into some money and bought an apartment: our life's dream. It has taken a lot of work and money, but we have finally refurbished it. My partner has had massive professional success over the past few years and I have been doing OK myself. Materially, we are holding out own. And yet my partner is increasingly aggressive with me. It's almost as if my recovery over the past few years upsets them.
Since about this time last year, my partner has been more and more aggressive, taking every little problem and mistake to start a fight. In response, I have withdraw deeper into myself and now my partner feels I have abandoned them.
Over the last two days, my partner and I have had a series of fights in which they've politically attacked me as "privileged" and say that I do not support them because of their race and gender. They have never said this sort of thing in our 20 years together and it is exactly the sort of reductionist criticism we have aways pledged each other to avoid in our fights. When we started dating, decades ago, we both promised that we'd never play race or gender cards on each other, so that if one of us had a real criticism that might be rooted in racism or sexism it would be brought up AS SUCH, SPECIFICALLY and dealt with as such. There would be no "You don't understand me because you are X" stuff. No relationship can withstand that.
Now, they are upset with me because I have bought three months of necessary food supplies because I am afraid of inflation and shortages (we live in the developing world, so these are considerable). We have the space to store it and the money is not an issue (I have spent maybe 100 dollars so far in two months — the equivalent of 2% of our combined salaries). In fact, they just bought 40 crystal wine glasses, which take up far more storage space and money.
According to my partner, I am buying three months of basic staples because I was "privileged" and didn't grow up in poverty like them. The irony of this is that the last time things got this bad, I was an adult, living on my own, right here in this fucked up country, from paycheck to paycheck, while they still had all their basic needs covered by their parent. My doing the same things I did in that time — investing cash in a back up of basic staples — is, to them, a ridiculous mark of privilege. This, from someone who just spent 300 USD on wine and wine glasses!
I bring all this up just to show how the fight is not remotely about my privilege, or my racism, or my sexism. When I ask them what they want from me, they say "companionship". But then they do all they can to undermine that. And they are gaslighting me, bringing up my mental health issues from three years ago and saying that my worries about possibly needing basic staples are "crazy". My therapist, by the way, knows what I am doing and doesn't think it paranoia or exaggerated.
So last night, we finally had a night alone (my partner's parent lives with us and went to a party). I made them Chucru Garni and we had some wine. I stopped at three glasses: they downed two bottles. We started discussing again and they were very aggressive and cynical, saying I would support them more if they were a man and white. I asked what support they needed from me? They said, "We need to buy groceries tomorrow." I said, "Fine. I will hit the market." But then it moved on to a more general malaise that they have with me, their job, my life, their life.
The Roe vs. Wade decision didn't help, as well as our local election results. They became more and more cynical and cutting, not wanting to credit anything I said as sincere, whether it was praise, criticism, or simple observation. You know the kind of discussion: as old as time.
"My work is a fucking mess."
"I know. I want to help, but you don't want me too. You got upset when I said 'X might happen' and now it has. I don't want to say 'I told you so', but I DID try to tell you this wouldn't work and you got angry. Now here we are. What do we do?"
"So you're saying this is all my fault?"
"No. I am saying you put too much trust in one person and now they've screwed you. You have to recover somehow and I am not sure what you want me to do."
"If I were a man and white I wouldn't have this problem. People would respect me. You would respect me more."
"I respect you immensely. So much so that I have been hands off your project because you told me to stay away. You are widely respected by many, many people. And if you were white and a man, you might be more respected, yes. But you also might be one of these MAGA asshats who think their life sucks because of immigrants. Who knows? The fact is, you are well respected and successful as you are."
And it just went around and around from there.
Finally, without raising my voice, I said "This is going nowhere. I am going to take a bath and try to relax".
I went and put on music, drew a bath, got my third glass of wine. My partner came in and wanted to enter into the tub with me, as if we hadn't just been arguing for an hour. I say "OK", suspecting, however, that what they really wanted to do was continue to needle me. And, of course, that is exactly what they did, changing the music, turning on more lights, etc. When I changed the music back, they threw the speaker into the tub with me and stormed out screaming.
I shut and locked the bathroom door. They started destroying the apartment. Then they left and haven't come back. They destroyed my computer and laptop and ripped through the hallway, literally tearing wallpaper off the walls and breaking planters and pottery. Here's a view of some of the damage:
Now I am home alone, trying to get the energy to start cleaning up. They are gone and have called no one: not me, not their mother, not their sister. I have two publishing deadlines due tomorrow as well.
I should divorce this person. I do not have the emotional resources to do so, nor the social support. I am tired. I have ordered sodium nitrite and antiemetics. If this is the end of this partnership, I really don't want to go on living. It's not even that I don't: it's just that I see no way to do so that will cost far many more spoons than I have or can possibly collect.
What should I do when and if I see them again? What should I say?
Three years ago, they began to get more aggressive with me as I became more depressed. I tried unsuccessfully to kill myself twice. I was diagnosed with diabetes, lost 25 kilos, went to therapy, got on meds, and — slowly — things started to get better, for me at any rate. My partner, however, continued to be more and more aggressive with me, even as I got better.
We came into some money and bought an apartment: our life's dream. It has taken a lot of work and money, but we have finally refurbished it. My partner has had massive professional success over the past few years and I have been doing OK myself. Materially, we are holding out own. And yet my partner is increasingly aggressive with me. It's almost as if my recovery over the past few years upsets them.
Since about this time last year, my partner has been more and more aggressive, taking every little problem and mistake to start a fight. In response, I have withdraw deeper into myself and now my partner feels I have abandoned them.
Over the last two days, my partner and I have had a series of fights in which they've politically attacked me as "privileged" and say that I do not support them because of their race and gender. They have never said this sort of thing in our 20 years together and it is exactly the sort of reductionist criticism we have aways pledged each other to avoid in our fights. When we started dating, decades ago, we both promised that we'd never play race or gender cards on each other, so that if one of us had a real criticism that might be rooted in racism or sexism it would be brought up AS SUCH, SPECIFICALLY and dealt with as such. There would be no "You don't understand me because you are X" stuff. No relationship can withstand that.
Now, they are upset with me because I have bought three months of necessary food supplies because I am afraid of inflation and shortages (we live in the developing world, so these are considerable). We have the space to store it and the money is not an issue (I have spent maybe 100 dollars so far in two months — the equivalent of 2% of our combined salaries). In fact, they just bought 40 crystal wine glasses, which take up far more storage space and money.
According to my partner, I am buying three months of basic staples because I was "privileged" and didn't grow up in poverty like them. The irony of this is that the last time things got this bad, I was an adult, living on my own, right here in this fucked up country, from paycheck to paycheck, while they still had all their basic needs covered by their parent. My doing the same things I did in that time — investing cash in a back up of basic staples — is, to them, a ridiculous mark of privilege. This, from someone who just spent 300 USD on wine and wine glasses!
I bring all this up just to show how the fight is not remotely about my privilege, or my racism, or my sexism. When I ask them what they want from me, they say "companionship". But then they do all they can to undermine that. And they are gaslighting me, bringing up my mental health issues from three years ago and saying that my worries about possibly needing basic staples are "crazy". My therapist, by the way, knows what I am doing and doesn't think it paranoia or exaggerated.
So last night, we finally had a night alone (my partner's parent lives with us and went to a party). I made them Chucru Garni and we had some wine. I stopped at three glasses: they downed two bottles. We started discussing again and they were very aggressive and cynical, saying I would support them more if they were a man and white. I asked what support they needed from me? They said, "We need to buy groceries tomorrow." I said, "Fine. I will hit the market." But then it moved on to a more general malaise that they have with me, their job, my life, their life.
The Roe vs. Wade decision didn't help, as well as our local election results. They became more and more cynical and cutting, not wanting to credit anything I said as sincere, whether it was praise, criticism, or simple observation. You know the kind of discussion: as old as time.
"My work is a fucking mess."
"I know. I want to help, but you don't want me too. You got upset when I said 'X might happen' and now it has. I don't want to say 'I told you so', but I DID try to tell you this wouldn't work and you got angry. Now here we are. What do we do?"
"So you're saying this is all my fault?"
"No. I am saying you put too much trust in one person and now they've screwed you. You have to recover somehow and I am not sure what you want me to do."
"If I were a man and white I wouldn't have this problem. People would respect me. You would respect me more."
"I respect you immensely. So much so that I have been hands off your project because you told me to stay away. You are widely respected by many, many people. And if you were white and a man, you might be more respected, yes. But you also might be one of these MAGA asshats who think their life sucks because of immigrants. Who knows? The fact is, you are well respected and successful as you are."
And it just went around and around from there.
Finally, without raising my voice, I said "This is going nowhere. I am going to take a bath and try to relax".
I went and put on music, drew a bath, got my third glass of wine. My partner came in and wanted to enter into the tub with me, as if we hadn't just been arguing for an hour. I say "OK", suspecting, however, that what they really wanted to do was continue to needle me. And, of course, that is exactly what they did, changing the music, turning on more lights, etc. When I changed the music back, they threw the speaker into the tub with me and stormed out screaming.
I shut and locked the bathroom door. They started destroying the apartment. Then they left and haven't come back. They destroyed my computer and laptop and ripped through the hallway, literally tearing wallpaper off the walls and breaking planters and pottery. Here's a view of some of the damage:
Now I am home alone, trying to get the energy to start cleaning up. They are gone and have called no one: not me, not their mother, not their sister. I have two publishing deadlines due tomorrow as well.
I should divorce this person. I do not have the emotional resources to do so, nor the social support. I am tired. I have ordered sodium nitrite and antiemetics. If this is the end of this partnership, I really don't want to go on living. It's not even that I don't: it's just that I see no way to do so that will cost far many more spoons than I have or can possibly collect.
What should I do when and if I see them again? What should I say?
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